


Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

by semele



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-09
Updated: 2012-12-09
Packaged: 2017-11-20 16:13:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/587277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semele/pseuds/semele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elena spends a lot of time thinking about Katherine.  Written after 4x05.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: she likes the way he looks at her now, for magisterequitum

Elena spends a lot of time thinking about Katherine.

Sometimes it's really hard not to, because Katherine surrounds her wherever she goes. Elena can smell her on her clothes and her hair, can hear her voice in the silence of the Boarding House, catches a glimpse of curls in just the corner of her eye.

(She expects her name to fall out of Stefan's lips every time he comes, his eyes shut and his body tense. Sometimes Elena even lets the veins around her eyes show, hoping it will make him slip, but Stefan is far too smart to fall for such simple bait.)

So every now and then Elena sits in front of a mirror and follows Katherine's features on the glass, Katherine's nose and Katherine's eyebrows. Her smile is not quite Katherine enough, not yet, but she's working on it in her spare time.

Recently she's started wondering which one of them might be older, but they're so close in age it's really hard to tell. So Elena has no idea whether they would've been more or less similar had her accident happened a year or two later, doesn't even know if it would've made a difference, but she thinks about it all the same.

 _One day_ , she decides every time she stares at the reflection of blood drying around her mouth, _one day I'll ask Damon, and he'll tell me,_ but somehow she never remembers after she's washed her face.

***

Damon's eyes always follow her around the room.

She's used to it by now, and she's grown to like his gaze. It's one of the things that don't change no matter how much she changes, so Damon's stare has some comforting familiarity to it. Elena is never quite sure what he's looking for, but she guesses it must be important.

Sometimes he looks right through her as if she is transparent, his eyes looking for something beyond her. Elena knows he's constantly comparing two mirror images inside his head; he must be doing it since this is what she's doing.

(She plays this game with him: she smiles and looks at him to see if she can get it right, Katherine-enough lips and teeth. The smile is always the hardest part.)

Elena doesn't even turn around when Damon catches her in front of a mirror. There would be no use to hide from him anyway, so she just lets her fingers follow the lines of her teeth on the glass, sharp edges and pointy ends. She's never more herself than when she suspects there's nothing more to her than a mirror.

“Do I look like Katherine?” she asks honestly.

She loves that Damon doesn't answer right away. He actually takes a minute to consider, turns her around, cups her cheek and looks her right in the eye, almost touches her veins with his fingertips. Finally he lets his own fangs show, something Elena hasn't seen for quite a while. He never has them out long enough for her to take a good look, and now she catches herself staring, weirdly fascinated by Damon's bloodshot eyes and empty expression.

“Do I?” he asks.


End file.
